A 63-year-old retired Palestinian teacher, Noor Al Deen Ebrahim Hamdan of Kofr Jammal, north of the West Bank, claims he will manufacture primitive weapons to protect himself and his family from daily attacks by Israeli wild pigs.

Noor Al Deen recently spent several weeks in the ICU of Thabet Thabet Public Hospital in Tulkarem after he was attacked by wild pigs released by Israeli colonists while he was harvesting olive trees. He was in a coma and sustained serious fractures and injuries in different parts of his body.

The villagers in Kofr Jammal claim that the situation is unbearable and have demanded that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) provide them with licensed rifles for self-protection.

Noor Al Deen said that working on Palestinian private land around the Israeli wall had turned into a safety threat for Palestinian families, especially during the olive harvest season.

“We have seen Israeli colonists in private trucks releasing wild pigs into our lands and have complained to the Palestinian authorities about this several times,” he told Gulf News.

Noor Al Deen was with his family members harvesting olive trees early in the morning when a wild pig attacked him. The same pig later entered his neighbour’s farm. Murad Khalid Helmi, who was alerted by Noor Al Deen’s shouts, climbed on top of his tractor to avoid the attack.

Wild pigs typically sleep during the day and roam around at night. “They attack us at night daily,” Helmi said.

This was the second pig attack in the village in the past few months. In an earlier incident, a villager, Mohammad Sulaiman Abu Zaid, became disabled after a group of pigs attacked him in his farm.

Monther Abdul Hadi, another villager from Kofr Jammal, said it was the PNA’s responsibility to provide farmers with the necessary protection. “Our youth spend nights awake protecting their families and houses from the pigs,” he said. “This threat should end.”

“The villagers should be armed with necessary rifles for self-protection. The PNA should address this issue with the Israelis,” he said. “The traditional ways of poisoning the pigs and fixing traps have proved to be useless as the number of pigs is increasing quickly.”

By Nasouh Nazzal

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